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@blossombriefs • 5d My Investments Bought Me a Home
A few years ago, owning this home felt impossible.

This week, we moved into our family’s dream home.

To make it happen, I sold a large portion of my $ZSP position to fund a healthy part of the purchase price.

Was it luck? Naw, absolutely not. And that’s an important thing to drill home.

This was years in the making.

Years of night shifts (since I was 18, thank god no longer cause I can’t do it anymore!) Years of sacrifice. Years of discipline. Years of living below our means and consistently investing, month after month. The market rewarded that discipline, but it all started with showing up to work and sticking to the plan.

Was it hard selling investments that have done so well? Absolutely, and I had a lot of back and forth arguments late at night with myself laying in bed trying to sleep lol.

But this is exactly why I invest.

Not to stare at a bigger portfolio forever, but to create options and improve my family’s life when the right opportunity comes along.

I didn’t sell because I lost conviction in $ZSP . I sold because my investments had done their job.

The best part? Even after the sale, we’re still over $700 ,000 invested, and now moving forward we’ll continue buying $XEQT every week as we rebuild the position over time.

With the new house, we won’t be investing quite as much each month as we were before, but we’ll still be investing a meaningful amount. That’s the beauty of building a portfolio over time. Once it reaches a certain size, your investments begin doing more of the heavy lifting alongside your contributions. Compounding starts working for you in a much bigger way.

Investing isn’t about dying with the biggest account balance, and I needed to remind myself that. (A lot)

It’s about using your wealth to build the life you’ve always dreamed of.

For us, that dream is this home. Where our kids will grow up, where memories will be made, and where all those years of sacrifice finally became something we can walk through every single day.

Here’s to the next chapter. 451 reactions • 104 comments

@blossombriefs • 4d Stop The Nonsense. It's Hurting You and Others ☹️Are you getting sick of constant stock price updates on Blossom? My feed is filled with the same 20 tickers and a snap shot of it up or down and in a rare case, some supposed reason why.

Are you posting up days? Why?

Are you posting down days? Why?

The reality is, constant stock updates are the investing equivalent of weighing yourself every 5 minutes. Drink a glass of water. You weigh yourself. You poop, you weigh your self.

🚨🚨🚨🚨 $AMZN is down 1.0% today!!!
🚨🚨🚨 $VFV is up 1.2% today!
🚨🚨🚨🚨 $SPCX is up 5... now 6, now 4, now 3..

Okay... and so what?

Investors shouldn't be tracking price movements like I see on Blossom every day. Stop.

It's UNHEALTHY and leads to INVESTING DISORDERS.

Unless you're buying or selling today, that number is futile, vain and meaningless.

What does it do?

It likely grabs your attention and engagement on socials.

It's likely creating an emotional response in you. And in the worst case scenario, it encourages you to confuse market ACTIVITY with PROGRESS and SUCCESS.

The biggest danger is never that the market is moving... it moves every second the markets are open, year round, for all eternity.

The biggest danger is YOU moving.

There are countless studies on investor behavior and what makes the average retailer perform so badly.

The studies show that checking stock prices every day makes it EASIER to panic, chase performance, sell low, buy high, and convince yourself that random market noise, future expected returns, analyst predictions etc is somehow meaningful to your investing success and you need to act on it.

The market has rewarded PATIENCE for over a century now. Patience is a quality we all need and can improve upon.

Your algo REWARDS your market anxiety with MoRE market anxiety creating content...

So be careful what financial junk food you consume and what voices you surround yourself with .

Your health and wealth are not rewarded buy consuming such content regularly.

Stay safe out there investing friends 🙌👊229 reactions • 147 comments

@blossombriefs • 5d I Went Down the Covered Call ETF Rabbit Hole 🕳️ Covered call ETFs might be the most divisive topic on this app. Half of you are collecting monthly income and loving life. The other half say it's a yield trap that's quietly eating your capital.

So instead of picking a side, I spent the week actually researching how $QYLD , $HHIS , $ZWB , $HDIF and friends work under the hood. Sharing what I learned — and where I'm still genuinely unsure 👇
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1️⃣ First thing that clicked: the yield is manufactured, not earned 🎯

The fund owns stocks, then sells someone else the right to buy those stocks at a set price (a "call option"). The cash premium it collects is a big chunk of your monthly distribution.

The trade-off: if the stocks rip past that price, the fund doesn't participate. It sold that upside.
Once I understood this, the whole debate made more sense. It's not free money vs. scam — it's cash today in exchange for growth tomorrow.
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2️⃣ The distribution isn't all "income" 🧾

This one surprised me. A 12% yield doesn't mean the fund earns 12%. Distributions are a mix of:

-Option premiums
-Dividends from the underlying stocks
-Sometimes return of capital (ROC) — some of your own money coming back to you

From what I've read, ROC isn't automatically bad (can even be tax-efficient in Canada), but if a fund keeps paying out more than it earns, the NAV grinds down over time. That's the "NAV decay" everyone argues about.

The gut check I've started using: pull up the max chart of the fund's PRICE, not total return. If it only goes down and to the right… the yield is partly being funded by capital. 📉
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3️⃣ The total return numbers were the eye-opener 📊

$QYLD holders collected 10%+ yields for a decade. Sounds amazing. But people who just held $QQQ ended up way ahead on total return (price + distributions), because markets make most of their money in a handful of big up-months — exactly the months covered calls cap.

That said… QYLD holders also had a smoother ride and got paid through every drawdown. Which brings me to 👇
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4️⃣ Where I've landed (so far): it depends what job the money has ✅

The "covered calls are a trap" crowd seems right IF you're young, accumulating, and DRIPing distributions back in — you're paying 0.65–1%+ MER to convert growth into income you don't need yet.

The income crowd seems right IF you're retired or actually spending the cash flow — getting paid without selling shares in a down market is a real psychological and practical benefit.

So maybe both sides are correct… for their own situations? 🤔
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5️⃣ My checklist before I'd buy one 🕵️

Still learning, but here's what I'm now checking on any covered call fund:

-Distribution breakdown — premium vs. dividends vs. ROC (fund's website)
-Total return vs. the plain underlying index over 3–5 years
-NAV trend — stable, or melting?
-MER — often 3–10x a plain index ETF
-Coverage — 100% covered, or partial (~50% like some BMO funds) that keeps some upside?
-Leverage — some funds (like $HDIF ) layer on ~25% leverage. Bigger yield, bigger risk.

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Where I'm still stuck 🚀

The question I keep coming back to: "Do I want to be paid now, or paid more later?"

I don't think either answer is wrong — but I want to actually choose it, not just chase the biggest number on the yield screen.
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So, to both camps: what am I missing? 👇

If you hold CC ETFs — what convinced you, and has the income held up? If you avoid them — is there ANY situation where you'd own one?

Genuinely want to hear both sides. That's why I'm here 🌸

Not advice — just my research notes. DYOR!114 reactions • 82 comments

@blossombriefs • 21h 😍 WHOS READY FOR BLOSSOMCON!!!Team has been in Rogers Centre all day setting up and it’s looking fire… over 2,000 Blossomers coming 🤯

Reminder you can post in this topic and visit the BlossomCon in app experience to connect with other folks coming to the event 😎

P.S. Support for Cash, Gold, and Silver is now live as highly requested! Make sure to update 📲154 reactions • 48 comments

@blossombriefs • 4d Conversation With A Coworker Two months ago I had a conversation with a new recruit about investing. (The reason I even started investing was because my field coach at work taught me, so I try to pass it on now to more junior members)

He was young, had his whole career ahead of him, and I was explaining why your 20s are such a powerful time to start investing. Every dollar invested early has decades to compound.

His response was, "I need to make more money first."

Then about six weeks later, I found out he bought a brand-new $75 ,000 Toyota Tacoma on payments.

To be clear, this isn't a post about car payments. Buy what makes you happy if it fits your priorities.

It's about opportunity cost.

Most people think they need a higher income before they can invest. But somehow they're comfortable committing hundreds or even over a thousand dollars every month to a depreciating asset.

Imagine if even a portion of that payment was going into index funds instead.

The biggest advantage young people have isn't a high salary.

It's time.

The dollars you invest in your early 20s often become the most valuable dollars you'll ever invest because they have 30-40 years to compound.

You can always buy the nicer vehicle later.

You can never buy back the years of compounding you gave up.121 reactions • 48 comments

@blossombriefs • 3d Why I Don't Have Life Insurance YetWhole life insurance is one of the most oversold products in Canada, and most people who get pitched it don't actually need it. I don't even carry basic life insurance myself right now, and that's a deliberate choice.

Life insurance is there to protect the people who depend on your income, and right now nobody depends on mine. I have no kids, no mortgage, and my wife has a strong career she'd carry on with just fine if something happened to me. The day that changes, say a mortgage or a child comes along, I'll buy term insurance that week.

Term insurance is built for exactly that window. You choose a term, say 20 years, that covers the stretch when your family would struggle without your paycheque, and you pay a low premium for it. It stays cheap because most people outlive the term, and once your savings have grown and the mortgage is gone, you usually don't need it anymore. Insurance is there to protect the plan. Growing your money is a separate job.

Whole life insurance is permanent coverage that never expires as long as you keep paying, and it comes with a cash value that gets pitched hard as an investment. I was talking recently with someone who holds a large stock and bond portfolio in their non-registered accounts. When they pass away, those investments will trigger a big capital gains tax bill, and an advisor had recommended a whole life policy to cover it.

In their case, I don't think that makes much sense. Stocks and bonds are liquid, so when the tax bill comes due, the estate can just sell a portion of the portfolio to pay it. Set that against paying steep whole life premiums every year for decades. The vast majority of the time, selling a slice of a liquid portfolio at death leaves a bigger estate than all those premiums would have.

A business owner, or someone holding a cottage or a rental property, faces the same kind of tax bill at death but without an easy way to pay it. The family often doesn't want to sell the business or the cottage just to raise the cash. That's where whole life can genuinely earn its place, covering a bill on something you can't easily sell or don't want to.

Whole life is expensive, and for most Canadians it simply isn't the optimal choice, even though it gets sold that way constantly. Nobody should buy a whole life policy without an unbiased second opinion first, ideally from someone who earns no commission on the sale. The illustrations look great on paper, but a lot of the growth built into them isn't guaranteed.

If you already own a whole life policy, this isn't me telling you that you made a mistake. Plenty of people were sold these by someone they trusted, and in the right situation the policy really does fit. It's worth understanding what yours is actually doing and whether it still makes sense for you. Have you ever been pitched whole life, and did anyone ever walk you through what it really costs?99 reactions • 54 comments

@blossombriefs • 3d Where's Perry Been?Just a short video explaining why I havn't been around as much... crazy organizing last week's Blossom in the Park and sadly my 91 yr old Father passing after a sudden medical event last week, dealing with his affairs, and now planning to attend TorontoCon on Saturday.

Also... working with Paul to do another Toronto Blossom Meetup like in June for any blossomers that wanted to attend. We are having a lil gathering Thurs at 6P at the same lounge near the airport as last month - Contact me in PM to get the location.
https://youtube.com/shorts/B-OdS_pJbHY?feature=share71 reactions • 67 comments

@blossombriefs • 2d Return Of Capital in Covered Call ETFs I'm diving deeper down the rabbit hole and trying to learn as much as I can.

ROC was a hot topic in my last posts so let's dig into it.

Turns out there are two types of ROC…..Good and Bad.

The bad kind is when YOUR CAPITAL IS GETTING RETURNED TO YOU.

This is done when the ETF is unable to meet its target distributions.

These ETFs will sell assets in the fund and return them to you as a shareholder in an effort or obligation to maintain that target distribution.

Lets look at HHIS as an example:

1 year performance is 17.6%

Current Yield is 26.58%

How do you pay someone a 26.58% return when your fund only made 17.6%? You return the capital to the investor by selling shares and including the money in their monthly payment.

But what happens when you sell shares? The price declines….

That is why HHIS is down 12% over the last year while the S&P is up 16.5%.....

HHIS does not make enough money to meet target distributions so they are returning money to shareholders through distributions by selling assets.

I have seen a couple of people argue about the tax benefits of this but here is what actually happens.

When you receive $1 of ROC on an ETF with a $10 cost basis, that $1 is not taxed as income and instead that $1 reduces your average cost base. What does this mean?

You don’t pay tax when you receive the income, you pay tax on it when you sell the shares and your new cost base is $9 instead of $10

And it will only help you in a taxable account, this does nothing for you in a TFSA or RRSP account.

So basically, you are paying HIGH management fees to have an ETF move your money around…

Now what is GOOD ROC?

This is when an ETF hands you a distribution that is legally classified as ROC but it does not erode the funds underlying asset value or NAV. (they didn’t have to sell assets to fund the distribution)

Basically these are accounting strategies that allow fund managers to classify real returns as ROC for the tax advantage I mentioned above.

They are basically repackaging profits as ROC to save investors on taxes and defer the payments.

So how do you tell when it is good or bad?

Very simple…..

Total returns need to be higher than the distribution.

If an ETF pays you 27% but only earns 16%, then YOU are making up the difference and paying an ETF high fees to move your money around and then RETURN IT BACK TO YOU.

If you buy Covered Calls, check the TOTAL RETURN vs TARGET DISTRIBUTION before you buy. The longer the time horizon the better.

MSTE, ETHY-B, HBTE, HHIS, and BIGY all payout more in distributions than they have returned over the past 2 years...... so if you like high fees, taxes, and lower returns, then these are for you!

High distributions are great for marketing but if the fund can't make enough to cover the distributions then I just can't see any scenario where this makes sense for an average investor.

Let it rip in the comments and we can keep this routine going! 81 reactions • 59 comments

@blossombriefs • 4d My CC TFSA paid $20,000 off my mortgage this yearCovered call ETFs don't just pay distributions. Mine paid off $20 ,000 of my mortgage this year.
1 year ago when I came across passive income CC ETFs and started studying them, I started my passive income journey in July of 2025 with one of the specific goals in mind : can I use covered call ETF distributions to pay down my mortgage AND grow my TFSA at the same time ?

Year 1 : here's the proof of what I achieved in 1 year with quite a conservative approach :
💰 Household portfolio: $1 .38M
📊 Combined TFSA: $312 ,806 : ~95% covered call ETFs
📅 CC ETF income generated: $60 ,462/year ($5 ,038/month) completely tax-free inside TFSA

Here's what that covered call income did:
→ $20 ,000 paid directly to our mortgage principal ($10K from each TFSA, as being first year we're being conservative, probably will increase this next year)
→ Both TFSAs kept compounding on the remaining CC ETF distributions
→ Zero units sold. Zero positions liquidated. Just distributions redirected.

And here's the trick you can use: By withdrawing $10K in distributions from each TFSA, not selling anything, we created $10K of new contribution room per account. Come January 1, that's $10K restored + $7K annual limit = $17K of fresh TFSA room per person.

That $17K goes straight back in. More CC ETFs. More tax-free income. Bigger distributions next year.
Pay the mortgage. Grow the TFSA. Increase the room. Repeat every year.

This was the goal from day one. Not accidental. Planned, executed, and now repeating.
Are you using your CC ETF distributions to create TFSA room strategically, or just letting them sit and reinvest?97 reactions • 35 comments

@blossombriefs • 2d Opportunity gapAs per usual, we are gonna toss $MSTE under the bus here yet again.

now most people know the breakeven chart. if you dont ill quickly jot it down here:

10%down = 11% BE
20%down = 25% BE
30%D = 43% BE
40% = 67%
50%=100%
60% = 150%
70 =233
80 =400
90=900
100=🍚🫛

We all know this or should, compounding works both ways.

this idea only gets us half way to the problem. because your money could have been somewhere else. This is the opertunity cost, the divergence between stratagies.

since inception $MSTE has a -61% return (we will call it 60) so your thinking great! only need 150%.... Compare that to a much simpler shut your brain off kinda stratagy ($XEQT ) since the same time period has returned 27%.

That doesnt seem like much.... but the real gap is 229%.

Bench marks are import. assesing opertunity cost is is important. you dont need to compare to other people. but you should stress test against simpler stratagies.

sorry mste crowd, I use mste because it is one of the most wide spread investments on the income side. It has also shown to be pretty volitile to say the least.43 reactions • 52 comments

@blossombriefs • 3d Another week, another buy ✅💵💵 ($325)❗️i haven’t posted in a few days and it feels so weird!!! i’m back now lol! what are we buying this week??

here’s to another:
$225 to $XEQT in my FHSA
$100 to $VFV in RRSP
66 reactions • 36 comments

@blossombriefs • 1d JAPAN, JAPAN, going to JAPAN 🗾Pinch me, I am going to Japan? (I must be dreaming right?!). It's a surreal feeling when it's the day before a trip that's been planned a long time ago. International travel is a luxury, I feel guilty for the extravagance of an overseas vacation, this was not something I did growing up (other than visiting family in Egypt). While my focus is always retirement planning and saving, my husband needs these family trips and experiences.

I finally understood what he was saying during our trip to Egypt, because my husband is a little over a decade older than me, and due to his chronic pain, I noticed the change in his body. He couldn't go inside many of the pyramids (they are quite physical, requiring crouching, climbing and crawling into ones stomach at times). This gave me an understanding of his need to prioritize these experiences now, since it will be unlikely that he will be able to do these things at age 60.

Similarly, we only have a narrow window to travel with our son and give him these wounderful experiences. In a blink of an eye he will be too busy with school, work and his own life.

What is truly increadible is that for the first time in over 10 years, we reached a point in where we can afford to make these trips happen. Visiting Japan has been my husband's dream for fourty years! and tomorrow it is happening for real, we leave at 5:00 am. This was unimaginable just a few years ago.

What has changed is out income has increased dramatically and our housing costs are low relative to our income (below 15%). This gives us the runway to save, invest regularly while also setting aside money for travel.

To plan for this, I work backwards. First, I set aside half of my annual tax refund from RRSP contributions to cover the costs of the flights. My husband knows how to optimize Amex credit card points to reduce the cost and get 'perks' and cancellation protection. (P.S. Americans have access to far better credit card travel rewards than Canadians do)

Next, I considered the costs of the hotel bookings, restaurants, transportation, outings and gifts. I tally everything up than I increase the number by 20% because travel ALWAYS goes over budget. From here I divide by the number of months and I work out how much I need to aside every paycheck into a separate 'travel' high yield savings account.

Now is a great time to visit Japan because the Japanese Yen recently dropped to decades low, making everything surprisingly 'cheap' relative to our currency.

The fact I can travel is a huge privellage, one that I don't take lightly, I can access many countries visa free without hassle due to my Canadian passport. My family in Egypt don't have that same freedom of movement.

Finally the real MVPs here are my coworkers who will need to cover for me for the over 3 weeks+ I am away! They are all excited for me 😊. Just like last time, there will be no more days off the rest of the year.

The dress below is a gift my husband surprised me with to wear on our trip, I was glad to see that he bought it on sale! 😉

P.S My husband diligently saved in his watch fund TFSA for this trip (using blossom growth recommendations), unfortunately he is down 30%.35 reactions • 54 comments

@blossombriefs • 2d 2nd paycheck of July 2026 (Mostly from Evolve)Hey everyone in the passive income realm! I hope your July is nice and warm (but not wildfire hot😟)

I just received my second big paycheque and wanted to let you know that retirement is so far going rather well - especially since the distributions keep rolling in despite certain stupidities in the world 😏
I'll get to the point and list the ETFs now

EASY - $1 ,508.15
BIGY - $2 ,115.62
SIXY - $144 .90
INTY - $200 .20

and from Global X
CMCL - $23 .20

So this 2nd paycheque was just shy of four thousand at a total of $3 ,992.07

I've been looking at the portfolio trying to decide where I should deploy this money. I've considered staying the stable course with SPLT or NSAV for the next mortgage payment, but I may just add to my fledgling CMCL or growing PAYG position. Any ideas out there?

......of course..... there's always MSTE 😆😆😆🤑💰🤑

Retirement is goooooood 😉😏😊71 reactions • 31 comments

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